A strange love
by ThePortalPony
Summary: Wheatley falls from space back into Aperture and GLaDOS is furious
1. The fall

GLaDOS walked through her ruined facility, slowly getting used to her new humanoid body. A while back, she had gotten bored with just hanging around in a room, so she had made herself robot body- but she made it look like a young human woman with long flowing hair that was part black, part grayish white. Her eyes were yellow and her figure was slim. She was beauty model material; just the way she wanted it.

But, now as she walked through the Aperture Science Laboratories, she didn't feel anywhere near a beauty model. Seeing her precious facility in such a state of despair almost brought her to tears- a feature she had actually included in her human design. Even in all the months since He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named took over, the large building was still in a state of disaster.

To help her out with the re-building efforts, she had turned a majority of her turrets into humans. Male and female, she had just put the machine on random setting the specifications to white hair and red eyes. But even with there help, re-building was coming along very slowly.

Now, standing in a ruined Test Chamber 00 in the Computer Aided Enrichment Center, she gently stroked a damaged self-portal placer on the wall, like it was her child. "Oh, my facility..." she mumbled for the umph- hundredth time. She was about to see if still worked like it had when the Mute Lunatic was going through the center, when a loud, deafening noise sounded from above her. "What?" She looked up, only to see the ceiling.

Moments later, a huge crash that sounded like an explosion shook the center. GLaDOS connected to the center control grid ( her brain was wirelessly connected) and commanded her turrets to to find out what happened. A buzz of "Search mode activated" blasted back to her as hundreds upon thousands of turrets replied. It was almost deafening. But above the noise, one "Target acquired." rose above them all.

GLaDOS immediately silenced all the turrets except for the one that mattered. "Where are you?" GLaDOS demanded.

"Wing R, Chamber 7. But-"

"Good." She cut the connection. Wing R. That's where she was now. She turned around sent a wireless signal to the wall to open up the secret panel that lead to the maintenance areas.

She scurried through quickly, having the entire building layout downloaded into her head, she knew exactly where to go. GLaDOS stopped only once to read a messy piece of graffiti written on the wall.

"The cake is a lie." GLaDOS read aloud. She shrugged it off and snapped her fingers; a recording program started. "Note to self: Clean up graffiti on wall. Maintenance area R-W." She snapped again and hurried down the dust covered hallway.

About 5 minutes later, another wall panel opened and lead her into a destroyed Test Chamber 7. It had been bad before: Overgrown and rotting with age and rust, but now it was unrecognizable. There was a huge crater in the middle of the room with smoke rising up from it. Standing in front of it, looking down was a short white-clad girl with blacked tipped white hair; the turret that GLaDOS was looking for.

She ran over and quickly searched her memory banks; the turret's name was 'Tara'. "So, what crashed from space?" GLaDOS asked slowing to a stop next to Tara.

"I don't think you're going to like it ma'am." She replied nervously, pointing down.

Curious yet hesitant, GLaDOS looked down and stopped breathing for a seconds. She was looking at a severely burnt and damaged, yet unmistakeable Intelligence Dampening Sphere. His blue eye was flickering and faded; he was blinded, but still able to hear.

"No. No no no no" GLaDOS took a step back in panic. "What- how the HELL did HE get here!" She looked at Tara for answers.

She replied, "Well he obviously orbited close enough to the earth-"

"I know how inertia and gravity work!" GLaDOS snapped. "What are the odds- oh never mind!" She pulled her hair then put hands together under her chin.

'Deep breathes... Calm down...' She told herself. Taking a recollecting breath, she looked down at Tara and smiled. "Grab that... THING and throw it in the incinerator for me will you please? And make sure it dies very painfully?"

"Yes ma'am!" Tara saluted and started to climb down the crater.

Taking another breath she turned to leave when suddenly she heard a voice. It wasn't Tara's; it was't anyone's. Only GLaDOS could hear it.

Caroline.

'Come on now,' her former self scolded her, 'That's a bit harsh. C'mon give him second chance.'

Without even realizing what she was doing, she turned around and called out, "Wait! Don't kill him!" She groaned. "Give him a body. Put the machiene on random and give him a body. Just make sure he isn't taller than me."

"Uhg!" She turned back around without waiting for an answer and continued to walk to her chamber.

"I need a margarita." She moaned as she slumped in her center chair.

Alcohol was always the ans


	2. FRECKLES there cute

So what the hell are you doing here?" GLaDOS snarled at the pathetic excuse for a being in front of her.

They were in her main chamber. Large and spacious, it was intimidating as well. GLaDOS was sitting in the center chair, glaring at Wheatley's new form. The randomizer did its job well. He was shorter than GLaDOS, with scraggly blueish gray hair that stuck out at all angles. His eyes were a soft shade of blue and his shirt was sky colored and gray with a white line going down the middle. He had freckles on his face.

GLaDOS found them fascinating for some reason. They kind of brought out his eyes...

Wheatley didn't answer; he just stood there with a weird smile on his face. The look in his eyes- the softness and the strange intensity- made GLaDOS feel...

...What was this feeling?

She shook her head. Repeating her question brought Wheatley back to reality from wherever he had been. He looked up at the ceiling and told her simply: "I fell from space."

His accent; GLaDOS had forgotten about it. How could she forget it? Even back when he was trying to kill her, she had always found the Cockney accent endearing. Many a times had GLaDOS tried to duplicate it on other robots- she failed every time.

"No duh, Einstein!" GLaDOS rolled her eyes. She pinched the bridge of her nose and expanded on the question. "The odds of you landing HERE is a million to one. How in the name of science did you manage that?"

"Oh it's simple really, luv." The moron told her matter-of-factly. "Remember when I was in charge? Well apparently some sort of homing chip was installed in the thinker." He knocked his head with his fist. "I dunno what it would normally do, but it made me crash here when I entered orbit." He looked at her curiously. "Didn't you know that?"

No. No she didn't.

"Of course I knew that. Where's the space-nut?" She had just realized that the corrupted Space Core wasn't there.

"Oh, Buzz-"

Now he was naming it? "Buzz?"

"Yeah, ya know: 'To infinity and beyond!'? Anyway, he was orbiting me until we reached earth's atmosphere." He shrugged. "I don't know where he is now."

Of course. He named it after a cartoon. Not Buzz Aldrin, one of the first men on the moon. She sighed.

"Okay." GLaDOS got up and stepped right up to him. She was happy about the noticeable height differences- it made him look small and child-like. Weak. She liked that.  
>"You listen and listen good, shorty. You are going to be kept under watch 247. If you do ANYTHING of concern I swear-"

"You know, you're really pretty."

GLaDOS stuttered to a stop. She looked down at him- Wheatley's face was bright as a cherry. He was avoiding eye contact with her. There was a moment of awkward science, before he continued in an unsure voice, "Well, uh, before you were huge and terrifying. Now you're smaller and it's... Nice." He shrugged and grinned sheepishly.

That feeling that had emerged earlier came up in GLaDOS. She still had no clue what it was, but it made her face grow hot and made her belly flutter.

She felt like she was going to be sick. She shoved Wheatley away and turned away. "Leave. Now." She growled. "Before I change my mind about saving you."

She heard Wheatley walk away. His footsteps echoed throughout the chamber, then stop for a moment.

"I still hate you!" He called back to her. Footsteps started again.

Making sure he was gone, buy still within ear-shot she screamed back, "And believe me I hate you too!"

The sound faded and GLaDOS felt her cheek.

It was still hot.


	3. ATLAS is here!

GLaDOS kept her word: Wheatley was constantly monitored by hover cameras. They were something she had been tinkering with for a while, the general description being a modified floating turret that worked as a camera instead of a weapon. Wheatley HATED them. That made GLaDOS happy. Not only was he constantly being followed, but GLaDOS also gave him the most tedious and hard of all the Aperture chores to be done. Including scrubbing away the graffiti she had found the maintenance area.

"C'mooon." He had complained to her as he scrubbed. She been on the other side of the building, but every human-body had wireless communication channel so everyone could be in touch. Wheatley was mistreating his. "This is haaaaard. And boring. I know I tried to kill you and all, but is this really fair?"

Twitching, GLaDOS responded, "Would you rather be incinerated right now?" Grumbles replied. "That's what I thought." She cut the connection, only to be interrupted again about 7 minutes later with more complaining.

It had now been about 3 weeks and GLaDOS was all but ready to crush her little British friend. She had tried to avoid contact with him since their first meeting. But of course, the little moron would follow her around like a dog or constantly annoy her with messages about "how sorry" he was. She got it. He was sorry.

What she didn't get was why was he apologizing so much? To make sure she didn't kill him? GLaDOS had no idea.

Now, working along with some of her closest friends, P-Body and Ana, she asked them the same questions.

"Well it's obvious he likes you." Ana responded immediately. She was one the very few Weighted Companion Cubes in the entire facility GLaDOS could stand. All the others were annoying and self –centered. The human- machine had given her bright red hair with pigtails. Her eyes were green and she had a gray outfit with black lines and hearts on it.

Her reply had caught GLaDOS off guard. She put down the piece of rubble she had been moving and looked at her. "What?" She asked, although she knew exactly what Ana meant. She was a Companion Cube after all. She knew a thing or two about love.

"He likes you- there's no doubt about it. Right, P-Body?"

P-Body was quite tall- one of the only beings in Aperture as tall as GLaDOS. She had short silver hair and a very sleek white and orange shirt with black pants. She had blue eyes. They were originally orange, but she and ATLAS had gone and swapped one night behind GLaDOS' back. Thinking it was kind of cute, she had let them stay that way.

Not looking away from her work- shifting through the rubble to find robot scarps- she laughed. "Ya got that right. He doesn't just like you 'DOS, he's head over heels for you." P-Body looked at her and grinned. "ATLAS tells me he talks about you ALL the time."

"Yeah. I've heard through the grapevine that he looks up to like a goddess of some sort." Ana chimed in on queue.

GLaDOS was blushing hard. She looked down to attempt to hide it. It didn't work.

"OOOooooh!" P-Body swooned. "Look at her blush!" She giggled.

Ana gasped. "You like him back!" She said it again. "You like him back! Oh my goodness!" She was literally bouncing up and down with excitement. "P-Body, she likes-"

"I DO NOT LIKE THAT LITTLE MORONIC IDIOT!" GLaDOS screamed. Ana stopped bouncing and stepped back. P-Body's grin left her face.

GLaDOS' fists were clenched; she so desperately wanted punch something or someone in the face. Deciding to target a wall, she swung with full force and made it crumble. The dust cleared and GLaDOS was glaring at her friends who had clammed up and went back to working. GLaDOS followed their examples.

No one talked. They were afraid to. But GLaDOS was fine with that, it gave her time to think. They didn't know that a voice in her head had told her to save him. They wouldn't understand that that was made her keep him. Not human desires of love.

But she couldn't ignore the fact that she had based the human body's A.I after ATLAS and P-Body's human emotions. Of those included was love.

Plus, every now and then, Caroline would chime in and say 'He's reckless. Like Cave was. You like that.' She did like that, but not in THAT way.

She sighed and shook her head. Human emotions are confusing.

But one thing was for sure. She hated Wheatley even more now.


End file.
